When they open their 30-day session on January 11, Virginia’s Senate and House of Delegates must correct some serious energy mistakes they made two years ago, when Democrats controlled nearly the entire state government and passed the “Virginia Clean Economy Act.”One of its party-line provisions requires that Virginia adopt California’s requirement that only low-emission vehicles (LEVs) be sold by the model year 2025 and only zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by MY 2035. That means in barely twelve … [Read more...]
Nature Votes Against Climate Alarmism
Everybody knows “climate change” leads to increased extreme weather events, right? After all, the Environmental Defense Fund, Earth Justice, Carbon Brief, the Royal Society, and the National Academies of Science all say so. But there’s a problem. Nature disagrees.Remember this famous graph by Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow Dr. Roy W. Spencer?That was just about what was happening with global temperature. As you can see, up through 2013, over 95% of climate models predicted more warming than … [Read more...]
UAH Global Temperature Update for November, 2022: +0.17 deg. C
Sorry for the late posting of the global temperature update, I’ve been busy responding to reviewers of one of our papers for publication.The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for November 2022 was +0.17 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean. This is down from the October anomaly of +0.32 deg. CThe linear warming trend since January, 1979 now stands at +0.13 C/decade (+0.12 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.18 C/decade over global-averaged … [Read more...]
Wind and Solar Playing Spoilsport in South Asian Energy Haven
Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state, is regarded by some as the renewable energy capital of India. It’s also getting to be known for expensive electricity.The presence of highly windy regions makes the state an ideal place for wind farms. But despite the year 2022 being one the best for wind generation, the state utility here had to increase its prices.Image: Creative Commons under Unsplash“The new rate for those using 500 units bimonthly would be $20 against the old rate of $13,” reported a … [Read more...]
Where Can You Find Peace and Safety?
Image: Creative Commons under UnsplashIn a world where everyone craves “peace and safety,” they are looking everywhere else but where it is truly found – and so wind up with neither. Our present world is in deep trouble far beyond merely the weather or the nastiest flu season in living memory. It is saddled with many juvenile political fantasies overwhelmed with economic malaise thanks to the abject legalism connected to those same political fantasies. Closely connected, our all-knowing … [Read more...]
The Iron Law Of Electricity Strikes Again: Germany Re-Opens Five Lignite-Fired Power Plants
Last week, numerous media outlets reported that Germany will extend the lives of three of its nuclear power plants. The move to keep the reactors online, which was opposed by the country’s Green Party, showed that German politicians are recognizing the need to keep reliable generation plants online to assure the country has enough electricity this winter.But another equally important announcement was also made last week that got far less media attention: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced … [Read more...]
Economic Realities Dash Biden’s Offshore Wind Plans
President Joe Biden’s plans for offshore industrial wind facilities lining the nation’s coasts have more than a few hurdles to clear before they can become reality.As part of his plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, Biden has initiated efforts to build 30,000 megawatts of traditional offshore wind facilities (with structures attached to the ocean floor) in federal waters by 2030, and an additional 15,000 megawatts of floating industrial offshore wind … [Read more...]
There’s No Natural ‘Carrying Capacity’ for the Human Population: An Essay Inspired by the Happy News that the Human Population Has Reached Eight Billion
Editor’s note: I am delighted to read economist Donald Boudreaux’s high praise of the late Julian Simon in the article below. I read Simon’s The Economics of Population Growth and The Ultimate Resource, plus The Resourceful Earth, which he co-edited with Herman Kahn, as part of research for my book Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources, and the Future (1988). The original publisher, Crossway Books, suggested asking Simon for an endorsement. … [Read more...]
As Predicted, COP27 Was a Flop Yet Again
Every year, the annual UN climate conference heralds two weeks of intergovernmental pantomime.Without fail, we are told that time is running out, that it’s one minute to midnight, and that it’s the last chance to save the world from doomsday.There is an uncanny sense of déjà vu while global CO2 emissions continue to rise relentlessly and with no sign of slowing down.We at Net Zero Watch have been pointing out for years that every COP passes through the same ritual stages, always ending in … [Read more...]
De-Urbanization of Surface Temperatures with the Landsat-Based “Built-Up” Dataset
A relatively new global dataset of urbanization changes over the 40-year period 1975-2014 based upon Landsat data is used to determine the average effect urbanization has had on surface temperatures. A method is presented to compute the magnitude of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect on temperatures using the example of summertime 09 UTC (early morning) Integrated Surface Database (ISD) hourly data (mostly from airports) over the period 1973-2022 by comparing urbanization differences to … [Read more...]
